The new Carroll Campus of West Georgia Technical College has received a $250,000 boost thanks to the Gene Haas Foundation.

The grant will be used toward construction of the Gene Haas Precision Machining and Manufacturing Lab, named for the founder and owner of Hass Automation, Inc., America’s leading builder of computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools.

“On behalf of the West Georgia Technical College Foundation, we are deeply humbled by the generosity of the Gene Haas Foundation with this lead gift at the new Carroll Campus,” WGTC Foundation President Greg Wright said. “This investment will allow the College to provide machine tool technology students with a state-of-the-art facility – one that we know will bring great pride to Gene Haas and the Gene Haas Foundation.”

The lab will be located in the Technical & Industrial Building on the College’s new Carroll Campus under construction now in the Buffalo Creek Technology Park just off the Carrollton bypass.

“Having used Haas machines and tools in our machine tool program for years, we are so pleased to have been recognized by the Gene Haas Foundation as a college worthy of naming our program’s training space the Gene Haas Precision Machining and Manufacturing Lab,” WGTC President Dr. Scott Rule said. “With the generous donation from the Gene Haas Foundation, the lab at our new Carroll Campus will not only reflect what can be found in industry, but will enable us to build the best training facilities available for this purpose anywhere.”

Gene Haas is also known as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing which competes in NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series, K&N Pro Series West and the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series.

Rule said the new Carroll Campus should be complete and ready for students during 2022. The College will be relocating all operations from its current Newnan Road campus.

WGTC Foundation Executive Director Kelsey Jones said the $250,000 donation is the first naming gift of a $5 million capital campaign for the WGTC Foundation. For more information about how to give, visit www.westgatech.edu/the-campaign-for-west-georgia-technical-college. 

The Haas Foundation’s primary goal is to build skills in the machining industry by supporting CNC machine technology students. Haas Automation operates a 1 million square foot manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California.

West Georgia Technical College, with campuses in Carroll, Coweta, Douglas, Haralson and Troup counties and class sites in Heard and Meriwether counties, offers more than 120 associate degree, diploma and technical certificate programs of study. A unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, West Georgia Tech is the fourth-largest of the state’s 22 technical colleges. For more information, please visit www.westgatech.edu.